Trump’s EPA doesn’t care about you

The Trump administration does not care about you. 

They do not care about your family’s health and safety. They do not have a plan to protect you and the people you care about from dangerous pollution, extreme weather events and the worsening climate crisis. 

Instead, they are making these problems much more severe.  

This callous disregard for human health is on full display in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to rescind its 2009 finding that greenhouse gases endanger public welfare and to scrap every past, current and future greenhouse gas emission standard for light, medium and heavy-duty vehicles.

The disregard has only become more obvious as this administration blatantly ignores scientific evidence and the devastation wrought by terrifying floods, wildfires and droughts — direct consequences of climate change.

The science is incontrovertible. Greenhouse gas emissions are driving a climate crisis, as EPA and the broader scientific community have confirmed over and over.

Sixteen years ago, the endangerment finding required the EPA to set carbon pollution limits on new vehicles, since the transportation sector accounts for 28 percent of domestic greenhouse gas emissions — more pollution than any other sector.

Strong vehicle standards are needed to ensure manufacturers are producing cleaner cars and trucks.

Throwing out these standards and the EPA’s ability to tackle climate change would have deadly impacts on Americans, especially low-wealth communities and communities of color. 

In addition to climate pollution, fossil-fuel powered cars and trucks release toxic air pollution that causes respiratory and heart diseases, as well as certain types of cancer. 

And according to the World Health Organization, air pollution is linked to increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes, diabetes, cognitive impairment and neurological diseases. 

But Trump’s EPA wants to make all of that much worse. 

Who stands to benefit from the Trump administration’s deadly changes? Certainly not the American people, who will experience more extreme weather disasters caused by the climate crisis, dangerous air pollution and increased fuel costs. 

While communities across the country are calling for cleaner, more efficient cars and trucks on the road, some manufacturers are backsliding and aligning themselves with the Trump administration’s dangerous, anti-science push to dismantle these life-saving regulations. 

Daimler, America’s largest truck manufacturer, with 40 percent market share, has praised the administration’s efforts to kill the standards. The world’s largest automaker Toyota, with 15 percent market share in the U.S., has repeatedly sided against U.S. clean car standards and policies. 

Fossil fuel CEOs are also cheering the Trump administration’s plans.

It doesn’t matter to this administration that cleaner energy and cleaner vehicles are more affordable, healthier for our communities and the environment, and will make us more innovative and competitive on the global stage. 

During his presidential campaign, Trump pledged to push Big Oil’s agenda if the industry spent big to get him into office — and this is a rare case where he has kept his promises.

Nearly 10 months after the 2024 election, Trump’s promise to a technologically obsolete, polluting and dying industry is becoming our reality, even as the world is racing forward to win the clean energy battle.

He is allowing dangerous coal, chemical and other polluting facilities to avoid complying with environmental rules. He is doing everything possible to kill the clean energy transition. Trump’s administration is putting people in harm’s way just to allow the fossil fuel industry to continue to make record profits no matter what.

I urge everyone reading this to submit a comment today telling Trump’s EPA to keep these common-sense, life-saving standards in place.

Katherine García is director of Sierra Club’s Clean Transportation for All campaign.